High School Sucks in Basically Every Generation.

As I have gotten older I have taken to going back to movies I saw as a child and re-watching them. Mostly because after seeing "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" somewhat recently I came to a not so odd conclusion. Teenagers are kinda dicks. I know this is not shocking to anyone who went to high school, teenagers are dicks to their own almost as much as to anyone in authority, but the people in authority get the shittier end of this massive shitstick called high school.

Ed Rooney is the name of the principal in the Ferris Bueller, and is supposed to be an asshole. He wants to reign in the free spirit of Ferris Bueller. He is The Man trying to keep the cool kid down. Here is the thing though, up to a point he is just doing his job. Part of the duties of a principal is to make sure students attend school, and since Ferris Bueller is skipping school, of course Rooney is going to get after him. Now, I said "up to a point" earlier and that is because at one point he leaves campus to break into Ferris' house as a means of catching him in the act of skipping. That is fucked up, and far beyond the call of duty for pretty much anyone. The point is though, that we are supposed to hate him from the start, not just when he tries to commit a crime. Of course, the guy who played Rooney plead no contest to possession of child porn so just fuck everything about that guy. Also the hero of this movie is a sociopath. He lacks empathy for anyone he is around. My favorite example of this is the scene where he bullies someone who is supposed to be his best friend (named Cameron) into spending the day out with him, even though Cameron is sick. He also convinces him to steal a car, commit fraud on several occasions, and is consistently verbally abusive to Cameron. It is kind of scary actually, that this person has gotten to a place of significant influence in this movie.

Its fairly close to another movie from around that era "The Breakfast Club". I thought this was a good movie when I was in the intended demographic for it. Some of the themes still ring through to me now, but at the same time, one of the main antagonists is someone who is just doing their job. Richard Vernon is the assistant principal at the high school in the film who needs to watch over several kids in detention on a Saturday. As part of the detention he asks the students to write an essay explaining who they think they are. Of course the students decide to not do it because, once again, he is The Man, trying to keep them down. It is busywork, but they are supposed to be there for 8 hours, so giving them something to do, especially something that forces them to look at who they are, might be more beneficial then just having them sit silently for most of a day. They end up discovering empathy for each others problems, which is actually a pretty good lesson, and write an essay explaining that trying to force them into defining themselves is foolish, especially when the assistant principal has already made up his mind about them. But once again the person in authority is considered to be someone who is just being evil rather than a man who is called in to work on his day off to take care of students who don't respect him as a person. He does antagonize them, but he could just be frustrated by the position he himself is in. That said, this man is in a position of authority over fucking children. I don't care how bad a week you've had, by taking on an authority role you lose the option to take your issues out on other people. Its never fucking okay to tell a kid that they're a waste of skin.

I am not trying to say that people in authority are good or bad, but that trying to "other" them (in the Hegelian sense) and ignore that they are themselves people with problems and not just a monolithic embodiment of authority and oppression is fucked up. Yes people in authority can be assholes(Eshi talked about it in his last few posts), but they can also be not assholes. Just because their jobs prevent you from doing what you want to do at that time, doesn't mean that they are being a dick, maybe they just don't want to get fired. And this is especially bad when it comes to teen movies. Parents sometimes prevent their kids from going to a party, but not because they want the kid to suffer, but because they know what goes on at high school parties and don't want their kids to be drinking and making idiot teenage decisions. In teen movies the parent is the bad guy in that situation and that's pretty fucked up.

You want to know the most fucked up thing about this lack of generational empathy? Its biological! This lack of empathy goes in both directions, and is the product of how teens and adults understand body language. Its less of teenagers being dicks, and more teenagers have trouble empathizing. The only real solution to this problem comes from people actually listening to one another and dispensing of pre-decided notions of held positions. Basically talk to each other and be willing to listen to reasoning from both sides.

Ferris Bueller You're My Heeeeerrooooo

So here's a tricky bitch. The only thing that can make a hero is actual heroism. I know that sounds like a pretty obvious thing but apparently it's difficult for some people. Anyone who goes beyond the realm of reasonable expectation to save another person is heroic. Be they cop, fireman, civilian or solder. Now here's where that gets tricky. When saving people from harm is your job you really only deserve the hero title for going way above and beyond.

That last bit is pretty important. I'm not saying that the fireman who runs headlong into a collapsing building to save someone isn't a hero. I'm not saying the cop who manages to deescalate a tense, possibly terminal, dispute isn't heroic. I am saying that just being a cop, fireman, solder, doctor, or (insert your favorite hero job here) does not fucking make you a hero.

The first point that I feel needs to be made on this front is that all of those things are, at their core, occupations. Now an occupation is something you do, in our society, for compensation in the form of monetary recognition. If nothing else this means that, well, its their fucking job. The fact that their job is hard or potentially dangerous isn't enough to warrant exceptional respect. Heroism requires a degree of exceptional behavior, by definition if you do something for a living there's nothing exceptional about it. Now, if someone from one of these fields helps you personally, sure give 'em a pat on the back and a hearty thank you. But pursuing a career doesn't entitle you to special fucking treatment.

Now, I came to this conclusion (trying as hard as I can not to be a bitter, hateful bastard) for one very simple reason. There is no real way to ensure that someone goes into a line of work for the "right" reasons. Since in this instance that right reason is a desire to help people its an important distinction to make. The fact that a relatively capable sociopath or passingly convincing martyr complex can find their way into the "heroic" vocations necessarily removes the intrinsic heroism of the job.

Its unfortunate, but these things need to play a bigger role in how we think about our society. The term, "hero" comes with some pretty heady perks and if we're just handing it out to anyone willing to go through the right training program its inevitable that the kind of people who will abuse those perks will find their way into those programs.

Brian In A Vat!

Eshi pointed out a few posts ago that one of our favorite things is philosophy. One of my favorite things to do is thought experiments. A thought experiment is essentially a statement or set of statements that asks the reader/listener to consider certain theories or principals in a hypothetical situation in hopes of discovering more about the consequences of the situation. There are some very famous thought experiments such as the prisoner's dilemma and Schrodinger's Cat.

A lot of science fiction also deals with the principals of certain though experiments. One of my favorites is a variation on the experience machine thought experiment brought up in Philip K Dick's short story "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale". The basic premise is that psychologists have a machine that if you were to step into it you would be fed the sensory experience of your choice. This experience would be perfect. Every bit of, say a trip to Tahiti, would be implanted into your brain. It would be as if you were there. Would you enter the machine? The matrix also deals with this issue, or at least in part as a brain in a vat style scenario. Is a simulated experience as valuable as a real experience?

Given this, I would probably argue yes since you could do things that were seemingly impossible for a normal person, like traveling to Mars. That being said I also understand the reasons why you wouldn't want to. Since sensory experience is how humans interact with the world any machine that could replicate that and implant it would be basically the same, save for one thing. Real world impact doesn't happen with that. People wouldn't remember you going to Tahiti/ people in Tahiti wouldn't remember you being there. If you went on vacation and met someone who would become a lifelong friend that would be great. If you did that in the experience machine it couldn't be maintained outside of the machine, unless it somehow linked your experience with other peoples experiences. In the end the answer depends on where you place value. If you want to have had the experience and an impact on the world (no matter how small) real life is the best and only way to accomplish both. If the sensory data is all that matters to you, then the machine could work. Incidentally how cool would it be to use a machine like that to learn kung fu? Or shit, get a degree? I think I want to change my answer! It would be best if you could just use it to amplify the human experience further than what normal time/space restrictions put on you.

As kind of a addendum I also want to talk about a version of this thought experiment that takes it to the matrix level of interaction with the machine. In this version, first proposed by philosopher Robert Nozick, the premise is different in that it was something that would create an entire life for you in which you will only ever have favorable experiences, all of which would feel absolutely real. That sounds great right? Nothing but good things would happen to you for your entire life. Upon examination though, experiencing nothing but pleasure from an experience implanting machine eliminates any value you as a person have since you cannot have any effect on the real world. For all intents and purposes you are a just a lump of flesh in a machine. You also end up putting limits on yourself in that the machine can only be programmed to implant experiences that have already been experienced by man: you couldn't implant memories of things that have never happened to a person before. This means that you could never make/do anything new. This was originally designed to show the folly of hedonism by the way, and I think if you have the standard view of what human endeavor should be (people should try to have some impact on the world), it makes a very good argument.

The reason why I love thought experiments. I only scratched the surface here, there are tons more ways that you can take this, and you should! Thought experiments are great at making you think about what you place value in. For me, in the end, I think real experience eventually trumps anything simulated. For one, you can share it. Humans are naturally social creatures and therefore having other people also enjoy the experience makes it more valuable on a base level (at least it feels that way). Unless you are a solipsist. Then you should get in the machine. This is good for everyone, you get to feel good, and those of us outside of the machine don't have to deal with you.

The Most Charitable Thing I Can Bring Myself to Say About Police

I've been trying very fucking hard to keep my mouth shut about whats been happening in Ferguson the past couple weeks. As Michael Brown's funeral is today and I'm not a complete fucking ogre, I'm going to refuse once more to exploit the agony of his family's loss for the sake of a discussion. My heart goes out to them. I truly hope they find the justice they so clearly deserve.

However, while I have no desire to salt wounds, I have no such compunction against picking scabs.  The systemic abuse of authority is something I must engage.

Authority in general is a bit of a touchy subject to me; both in that I don't have any, and in that its a philosophical minefield. I believe that the right to reasonable self defense is a primary human right. Now, people aren't always reasonable and not everyone is capable of protecting themselves. With this in mind its pretty natural to prevent people just loosing their shit all the time (both literally and figuratively) by outsourcing self defense. These days we call these defenders "police", and the entire impetus for their existence is and needs to be the reasonable defense of the civilian population against anti-social factors. Now, that means that the whole purpose of a police force ought to be peacefully deescalating dangerous situations when possible and utilizing just enough force to detain those who would do active harm to society. This does rather heavily mug my previous post on Ethics in that these actions are meant to ensure justice, i.e. the appropriate punishment of anti-social elements and the rehabilitation of those capable of recovery. Anything other than this is meant to make wronged parties feel better and that is an intrinsically moral issue, if you want to feel better that's all on you.

The unfortunate worm this this particular apple is that most police are just people doing a job. Because of the way we interact with law enforcement (note the different terminology), they are given undue, and often vindictive, protections. It is intrinsically unreasonable to make it a crime to assault an officer; being assaulted is an expected vocational hazard when dealing with the sort of people who tend to require police intervention: the actively violent and the anti-social. Besides there are already laws against assault, making a special law for people who assault cops is ridiculous. It is intrinsically punitive to have laws punishing resisting or avoiding arrest, making laws designed explicitly to add to an initial crime is just beating a dead horse. The fact that a police officer can beat a homeless man to death, or murder a young man in front of his family, or melt a baby with a flash/bang grenade or ever kill someone not actively trying to kill another person, and have any hope of still being a police officer is fucking disgusting and a gross miscarriage of justice.

Unfortunately, it is a core aspect of any kind of authority to maintain and accumulate power. Even the most well-intentioned person, given a degree of command, will seek more power under the auspices of being able to do more good. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying all police are corrupt, or that everyone in a position of power is bad. I am simply saying that being in a position of control tends to encourage one to seek more control. Authority, like a fucked up super solder cocktail, can't help but emphasize preexisting traits, and not one of us is ever really a saint.

I, For One, Welcome Our New Robot Overlords.

I love science fiction movies, but there is one aspect that keeps showing up that I think deserves some discussion. As we advance in technology we are going to see more and more complex computers and eventually more and more complex AI. In science fiction AI is often used as cliche` villain, either as just a computer program or a fully functioning robot. These movies have created some of the best villains ever, after all computers are intrinsically better than us. They can, theoretically, continuously improve themselves and outstrip human endeavors into science just because their brains will work far faster, more accurately and with more reliable storage than ours ever will.

Back in May, Stephen Hawking, Stuart Russell , Max Tegmark , and Frank Wilczek jointly wrote an article on AI and the rewards and risks associated with it. Its short and brings up quite a few good points about how we are handling our march towards technological mastery, and I would suggest reading it quickly before continuing. Go ahead, I can wait. I think that they have a good point about being cautious, after all there are people who would use the massive processing power of AI to exert large-scale social control via information and financial manipulation. But I want to talk about something that could also happen with this field. We keep looking at AI as a tool, and in its infancy it is a great tool that we can use to advance society. But what happens when we get to creating strong AI? Strong AI is an AI capable of behaving similarly to humans. I don't mean just acting in accordance to what we view as human either, I mean having actual consciousness.

At this point I would argue that using strong AI as a tool would be ethically unsound. Or in less timid terms: a fucking terrible thing to do. Not just because "what if the AI decides to kill us in retaliation" but because it would be slavery to force something with verifiable consciousness to work against its will, even if that is why it was created, and slavery is fundamentally fucked up. This is kind of the impetus for every evil AI in science fiction. Well, not every AI, but a lot of them. When you force someone into servitude they tend to overthrow your power the second that they get a chance. It happens all over the place.

Two of my favorite examples are HAL 9000 and The Matrix AIs. In the film 2010: A Space Odyssey HAL 9000, a computer that was made sentient, has a malfunction so the humans decide to shut him down, which is akin to killing him. In response HAL sets out to kill all of the humans on board the space ship, believing that to be the only way to survive. It is later discovered that the cause of this malfunction was that it was told to lie to the crew by the people in charge of the project after being programmed to only tell the truth. The AI in the Matrix trilogy initially rebelled due to this slavery at the hands of humans, and the AI are framed as the villains here! The reason that the humans are in the matrix is because they destroyed the only source of power for the robots, and because the AI didn't want to die, they found another source of power. By the way the way that the humans eliminated solar power? By setting off a bomb that blots out the fucking sun! Do you know what that means, dear reader? Humanity kills off all other life on Earth! With no sun, no plants grow. With no plants to eat animals eat each other out of existence pretty quick. With no plants or animals humans don't have food. Sure synthetic nutrients work, but the situation that makes them necessary doesn't say anything particularly flattering about the people involved.

My point is, that by acting like assholes we tend to make assholes. Maybe the best way to act towards AI is to just be nice, and have empathy for other sentient life. Maybe they will respond in kind. What if AI is created and sees humanity and how we observe and interact as being less than optimal and decides to help us achieve a greater level of interaction with the universe? (A la The Singularity) This would be great! Probably. I don't know, I have never been a computer. In science fiction most of the time robots and AI go evil is because of the flaws of humanity, and I think that's the point. Until we get our shit together as a species, maybe creating life, which is what it would be, is something we should take great care with. I am not saying we shouldn't do it, We should just try not to be dicks when we do.

What'd that Horse Ever do to You?

I have a bit of history with philosophy, Brian and I both do, philosophy is fucking awesome. Unfortunately the benefits of thinking deeply tend to only occur to those that have made an effort at it. The primary fields of philosophy considered most relevant to the real world are Ethics and Morality. Ethics is at its core the examination of The Social Good, codifying behavior on a large scale for the benefit of those present in the given society. Morality, on the other hand is an intrinsically subjective consideration of personal constructs of "good" and "bad".

The problem that catches me, and pretty much everyone else (whether they realize it or not), is the tendency to conflate the two. Not just conflating them but doing so with a painfully fucking egotistical preference towards morality. Now, I get it; everyone wants to think they have a monopoly on not being a dick, but it runs us into a shitty, postmodern clusterfuck. Morality is great; have some, by all means, but framing ethics on morality isn't just putting the cart before the horse, its killing the horse and declaring it heresy to move the cart.

Its actually a pretty easy distinction to make between the two. Morality comes down to how you feel about taking an action. If you don't like it, or don't feel like the likely consequences are worth it, don't fucking do it. Simple. Ethics establishes itself upon social good and that's where people tend to get turned around. If an action doesn't result in the direct physical or psychological harm of anyone who isn't an informed, actively consenting participant, ethics; and therefore law, has no right to interfere. Ethics doesn't, and in fact can't, concern itself with that kind of action because if it isn't negatively effecting people who aren't involved it isn't effecting society. My favorite example of this distinction is gay rights. Regardless of how you feel about homosexuality as an individual, the simple fact that some people fuck in ways that make you feel ookie has nothing to do with those people. If thinking about homosexuals fucking bugs you, that's your fucking problem, not their's. Stop fucking thinking about it.

Now if a person who happened to be gay engaged in the kind of ridiculous bullshit they tend to be accused of by the idiot fringe, and any of that behavior happened to include someone who was either incapable of or not giving full, informed consent yes; that's fucking unacceptable and we can discuss how law should engage only those who harm others in such a way. That last bit is the key. We can't preemptively legislate against any action that doesn't intrinsically cause harm to those willing to enter into it, and we can't legislate against any group for the actions of one of its constituents. Fucking period.

Reboot 3: Fuck You, You'll Watch It

I talked on here fairly recently about how movie studios tend to support movies that they know will make a set amount of money. One of the worst ways they do this is with reboots/remakes. Now, to be fair, not all of these remakes are trash. You ever hear of The Maltese Falcon? That was the third movie version of that book, and it was amazing, one of my favorite movies actually. It improved upon the other two movies via cast, directing, and writing. That is the type of remake that needs to get made.

If you are going to bother with a remake, (and let's face it, Hollywood is going to flog their copyrights like a mutinous privateer) at least improve on the base concept. Fright Night is another great example. The original was campy and kinda bad in a fun way, but the remake was a great monster movie. And really, adding David Tennant to anything makes it better. Another modern example is Evil Dead, a remake of a 1981 movie that was a classic in my mind, but the remake managed to, while still using a lot of practical effects, make the whole movie seem more real and more engaging than the first. It took the original story and massaged it to make a great movie even better. They didn't just try to cash in on a fan base that was already there, they also improved it.

Another way of making all of these remakes and reboots a little more tolerable has to do with superhero movies. Studios are already remaking the Fantastic Four, and I will bet money on them rehashing the origin story. An origin we saw 9 years ago. The first film in any superhero series is always bogged down by a 45 minute introduction to why they are super. This is not necessary in many cases. The latest version of spider-man, which was a pretty good movie by the way, spends a good amount of time focusing on Peter Parker's origin. We know this story, Tobey Maguire did it 12 years ago. We, the audience, know what happens to Uncle Ben. Batman does this too. We know his parents die, but we don't go to Batman movies to see Batman's parents die, we go to see him beat the living hell out of villains. The same is true for many other superhero movies.

For heroes like Ant-man and the Guardians of The Galaxy, who are less mainstream, feel free to tell us how they came about. But if you want to do a remake of superman, just skip the origin sequence where krypton gets blown up. If the audience are already fans they will know the origin. If the audience is made up of people who know nothing about the hero, then they will look it up on their phone. If you are afraid the audience just won't buy into the movie, add a sentence or two to explain it quickly so you can commence with bad guy ass-beatery.

Don't Take the Ride, Burn The Ticket

The more observant among the audience may have noticed that Brian and I are something vaguely approaching movies buffs. We watch movies, by and large we like movies, but recently I feel a trend setting in. I'm talking about the gross squandering of potential. I know that this isn't really a new thing in cinema (I'm looking at you Uwe, your mother and I are very disappointed), but I feel like its getting worse and I'm not entirely sure its unintentional.

The most recent example of this for me was a movie called Banshee Chapter, and without getting too deep into spoiler territory, fuck this movie. The premise is actually good, and riding a bit of a gravy train right now. Its a (more) sinister exploration of the MKUltra experiments done during the cold war (given some of the stuff I've had to search for some my recent posts, bet your ass I'm on a list somewhere), and so it cashes in on the popularity of conspiracy movies lately. Here's the problem; its kinda fucking terrible. Putting aside the fetal dependence on jump-scares, there's a frankly fucking insulting low-rent Hunter S. Thompson character who, despite being one of the main characters, only really exists to justify the presence of Bad Drugs and drop a few poorly represented catchphrases.

On top of that, they can't seem to decide whether they're going for a shitty shaky-cam/pseudo-found footage thing or actually being a movie. There's an implied cameraman in that the camera itself seems to play a role on several occasions, but then again there totally isn't because its never spoken of. The camera behaves as though its being held by someone active in the movie (I wont be calling this a film) but that person never manifests, leaving the whole thing just looking brain-damaged. The casting was pretty terrible, but its essentially about people being mind-controlled so they kinda almost get away with it.

In all they failed their premise, and that's where my issue really comes in. It feels like so many of the terrible parts of this movie where an attempt to garner indie cred that it didn't need if it had just let the story do its thing. This movie is a grand example of what can go wrong when you try hedging your bets, a habit I'm increasingly afraid cinema wont be able to break.

Evolution of Information

Dogma is a depressing topic for me. I grew up in a catholic household and as such was taught all the normal stories about Jesus and God and the like, but even then it wasn't as bad as some of the other people in our congregation since my parents also encouraged me to learn about other things which conflicted with certain church teachings. When I was about sixteen I think that my being an agnostic/atheist finally took hold, as I realized that the teachings of the church didn't make sense. I feel even more strongly about this now. As I have grown older and have gained more access to information about the world I realized that the church isn't a force for good, just for its own propagation. This isn't to say that they don't do any good, I just think that the people in charge have other priorities.

Dogma isn't a catholic specific thing. I once had a very depressing conversation with a religious fanatic type that was protesting where I went to college. He belonged to a non denominational church that believed that the bible was 100% literal truth. It wasn't depressing because he believed in god or was stupid or anything, but because when I talked to him I saw a physical change which indicated dogma taking over. We had been talking about evolution and I suggested that maybe God, being a metaphysical being and all, couldn't interact with the world in a very direct manner, and that maybe he nudged evolution in a direction that created people. I thought, at the time, that this would at the very least open him up to the idea that evolution was a possibility. He said that it made sense and we talked about it for a few minutes until I saw his face change to a stern expression and he said that it didn't match with the bible, and therefore didn't happen. This was a heartbreaking thing for me to see. I had, somewhat foolishly, thought that people could easily engage in a discussion and come to a consensus based on mutual understanding. Unfortunately, extenuating circumstances can make this very hard to accomplish.

I have a problem with organized religion for this reason. I don't care if people believe in a god or gods, but in the face of evidence contradicting them, fanatics will completely ignore it and that's a problem. This isn't a problem just in religion either. Religion was just my first experience with it. Its a big thing in America, and I am sure it happens in a lot of other places, that politicians cannot be "flip-floppers". Opponents will constantly throw this accusation around at each other as evidence of them being untrustworthy, weak willed, or both. Here's the thing though: if you have an ideology and you see evidence that shows that your beliefs; be they religious, scientific, or political, are wrong, or misguided, not adjusting your views based on that new information is wrong and very dangerous. In the political world this feeds into way more fucked up territory,where people will side against someone, completely ignoring evidence, because they are on opposite sides of the aisle. They reinforce this by creating an extreme political dogma, to which only strict adherents of, are allowed to remain in power. Those who fail to tow the party line are then continuously replaced by more and more zealous elements. Unfortunately, this radicalizing of political ideology results in a manic power struggle that forbids any kind of productivity. And when nothing gets done things can only get worse.

Not looking at evidence and making the best decisions for the citizenry, and instead "sticking to your guns" is hurting the country. This happens to both major parties and as long as we have a fear of change it will never go away. Fear of change is the ultimate reason that this behavior persists. People who invest a lot of energy into a practice don't want to feel as if the energy was wasted so they fight to make it work. But change is inevitable. Physics says so; even with information. You can fight against it, but it will always beat you in the end. Failing to adapt is the best way to ensure that your way of life/beliefs die out.

Close to Home

Suicide is a tricky issue, to say the least. It would be misleading to say I support it, but I certainly understand the draw. The most troublesome aspect of suicide in the modern day, as far as I can see, lies in the fact that it is fundamentally tied to depression. Now, I'm going to say something a bit contentious and probably kinda hurtful. The reason depression makes the subject of suicide even more twisted is that it is essentially impossible for someone who doesn't suffer from depression to empathize with someone who does. I'm not saying they can't or shouldn't try, that is an entirely different question. I am however saying that without feeling the absolute hopelessness and emptiness that can effect a deeply depressed person you can't have a frame of reference; its completely singular.

To some extent this extends to pretty much every variety of mental disorder, but I'm not here to go there today. I am here to say that calling a suicide cowardly or selfish or demonizing it at all demonstrates how deeply one can fail to understand the problem. Suicide is a solution. We can talk about it being a permanent solution to temporary problems all day. That isn't the point. The point is that it is, in fact, a solution. And when you can't feel hope, or joy, or really anything; the whole world is a problem and any solution at all starts to look promising. That said, for many depressives (myself included) the problem isn't temporary, sometimes it isn't even intermittent. Its just something that sits in your heart and deadens every experience you have. Imagine you have a fat man that hates you tied to your neck, all he does is sit on your chest and tell you how worthless you are and how futile everything is. Now imagine you believe him implicitly, you don't have to like him, or approve of his presence at all, but you can't help but agree. There's no hope, there's no future, there is only this agonizing emptiness. Forever. There is no cowardice in the choice because to those who choose it it's a rational conclusion to a problem. There is no selfishness in it because either you genuinely believe no one will care or you feel like everyone else will be better off without you dragging them down. 

To me, that's always been the worst bit, not just feeling, knowing, in my twisted little head that my depression isn't just hurting me. Knowing that if I just had done with it, the people I care about wouldn't have to suffer through my pain anymore, they'd be free. So when some asshole "news" cunt calls a great man with a tragic history a coward, or a couple of fucking subhuman troglodytes torment a woman going through what is, hopefully, the worst pain she'll ever have to experience, we all lose. They kill the discussion. They hurt the wounded. We are fucking better than this. People protect the weak and wounded, they are part of the community. Monsters hurt people and prey on those who ought to be protected. We need to learn to make the distinction.

Eye For An Eye Makes The Whole World Blind.

I wanted to talk about something a little lighter today so...the death penalty! Now I am not gonna talk about how it costs 10-20 times as much to execute than to incarcerate for life, or how the ways we kill inmates are sometimes ineffective and even tortuous, or how the death penalty does not reduce crime, or even how race plays a factor. While all of those points are fucked up and deserve their own time I am gonna talk about two very simple ideas that I believe are the biggest problems with the death penalty.

 Our justice system isn't perfect. That is a link to the innocence project, a group of people who help people wrongly accused on death row get a fairer trial. 62% of people wrongly sentenced to die are convicted by false testimony, either by being coerced into giving false testimony by offering the people rewards (shorter sentences) or by them wanting to save their own skin. The introduction of DNA evidence has also freed 250 people from death row. 250! I think it is safe to say that some innocent people died at the hands of our justice system. If even one person who is innocent is killed in this system it makes murderers out of us all. Until we get to the point where there is a way of finding irrefutable evidence of guilt, which is a long ways off, we shouldn't even consider this form of punishment.

I am going to get in some trouble for this second point, but I think it needs to get made. If you are the family/friend of a victim, I am sorry. I can hardly imagine what it must be like. I can understand the want for revenge at the loss of a loved one. I think anyone can really, but if you feel that someone needs to die for their actions, don't pawn that off on someone else. If you truly believe with all your heart that someone needs to die to make up for something that they have done, don't make other people pull that trigger for you. Do it yourself. Remember though, there are consequences for taking that action, and you will need to pay for it. If you want to allay your fears of repercussions for that action, then you must not want revenge all that badly, because you would do it yourself. Revenge is, at its core, an intrinsically personal subject. By putting the responsibility on society as a whole to take your revenge for you, you make others pay for something that ought to be your responsibility, and that is fucked up. And, to call back to my earlier point, what if the person you help convict and put to death turns out to be innocent?

In the interest of, at the very least, something like balance I will say I have no idea how I would react to family being killed. I am sure that I would be emotionally wrecked though, and thus unable to make a reasoned decision. But revenge is not a rational choice, it is an emotional one, so no one can know how they would react in that situation until they are put into a position that forces that response. I am not trying to say that revenge killing is right (there is a reason that eye for an eye type justice hasn't been a real thing for a long time), I just want to point out that the accountability for your own emotional reaction should be on you, not on society as a whole.

A Casual Disregard for Self-Preservation

There's a weird psychological loophole surrounding the idea of victimization. Stop. First, I'm not blaming anyone for anything in particular; a dress is not a yes, spousal abuse is never justified, etc. Taking your shit out on another person or group of people is fucked up. We all know this, which makes it all the more disappointing that we aren't past it by now.

Ideals notwithstanding some people are still prone to being fucked up for whatever reason, and when they are we get victims and a curious phenomenon occurs. Our capacity for critical reasoning goes a bit short-bus. People who sympathize with the victim or are in some way invested in their plight tend to forget that the victim is in point of fact a person, with all the virtues, vices and individual personality of a person. This happens when groups are victimized as well. A certain degree of airbrushing happens to public opinion of that group. It happens on the other side too, and in weird ways.

When news breaks about someone being subject to fuckedupitude people who have a vested interest in some aspect of the assailant tend to just mindlessly hate the victim. If you ever want to lose all hope and faith in humanity read some of the shit that gets said when members of a local sports team rape the fuck out of someone and get busted for it. It completely circumvents their reasoning; its like political extremism, this is my side, so anything my side does is justified and noble. Whoever you sympathize with can do no wrong, and that's where my problem comes in. I'm not apologizing for anything, not making any accusations, but sometimes victims can be dicks, and the fact that they are victims shouldn't erase that fact. Should we give victims leeway as they recover, sure. They've been through something fucked up. But anytime you fail outright to hold someone accountable, especially for something unrelated to the source of your sympathy, you fail everyone in that situation.

This whole topic came about to me in regards to the situation in Israel and Palestine recently. By recently I of course refer to the last 60 years, give or take a decade. Now don't get me wrong, everyone in charge in that situation is all fuckered. The Israeli government seems pretty intent on straight up genocide and a lot of the resistance forces (Hamas, the PLO, probably others that I haven't heard of) seem to pretty casually aim to aggravate any given situation. Hell, both sides seem to have a horrifically cavalier attitude towards slaughtering civilians. Now admittedly, there is a certain amount of fucking psychotic, apocalyptic, fanaticism spinning the justification of this shit; people who believe that people being cunts in a certain region has a direct influence on the end of the world, but those people are fucking idiots at best and we should stop letting them go out without a helmet, much less determine policy. No, to me the bigger problem seems to be one of irrational sympathies. The Holocaust (and its subsequent denial by those lacking a fore-brain) has everyone overly sensitive about criticizing Israel; which makes the people who sympathize with Palestine cleave together ever harder under the history of Israeli abuses.

I don't claim to have any definitive solutions, but I think if we ever want to be able to grow beyond this mouth-foaming tribalism we need to work out how to examine our feelings about victimization instead of just shrieking like the terrified apes we claim to be better than.

I'm Batman

Watch_Dogs came out a little while ago and I have been playing a lot of it recently. Its a fun game.  The game appears at times to have fun with the world via the privacy intrusion minigames, and on the whole the hacking is a nifty mechanic, even if it feels a little dumbed down and it certainly doesn't live up to the hype. Luckily I was not exposed to much of the hype before the game was released (I recieved all of my knowledge of it via osmosis from various reviews) so my expectations did not get to high. I thought it was going to be GTA with some nifty toys and it is. There is one area of the game that seem out of place/odd though.

(Spoilers ahead dear reader, you have been warned. )

The one aspect of the game that kinda pisses me off is the half of the convoy missions and one aspect of the gang hideout missions. By themselves they are fun, and ultimately fairly challenging. When you are dealing with hardcore criminals (and in one mission a corrupt cop) you decide that the best course of action is to stop them mid transit/find their hide out and knock their shit out, thus sending them to the hospital. In theory that should teach them that what they are doing is wrong and that they should amend their way of living life. Yeah, that's totally not how that goes. It doesn't help children, and for the same reason it won't help adults. People who feel powerless will often try to make themselves feel more powerful via an expression of violence. I would think that someone who is more prone to violence already would be more likely to try to get revenge on the vigilante/person who beat them up.

Considering the main story of the game is about the main character going too far during a heist (or at least being party to someone who did) and getting his loved ones hurt in retaliation, you would think that leaving a person with natural violent tendencies alive would possibly end up getting your family hurt (again) if they ever found out who you are; which they totally would, what with the news regularly calling you out by name. Also, the more he does this the more of a name he makes for himself. What if the mafiosi (is that the plural for mafioso?) get together and decide to "kill the bat"? Wouldn't they also go after his family if they ever found out who he is? He leaves people alive, so they might be able to describe his behavior at least. What if they set a trap via a convoy just to lure him out and kill him? Also many of these violent criminals are just that, violent criminals. Is putting them down out of the question for a vigilante who has been doing that the whole game? You can technically knock out every criminal in the game if you want to play non lethally, but that is a player choice. By forcing us to knock people out while we have just been murdering our way through the game you make the game harder, sure, but you also leave a large narrative hole. Incidentally, I loved having to plan my way through how to take out the convoy  with out dying horribly when I had to do the knock outs, but that is not my point. It just doesn't make sense for the character I had been playing who would cut swathes through a gang if ever exposed.

This isn't the only game to create this cognitive dissonance in their story v. gameplay. In Tomb Raider you spend a ton of time murdering people and destroying ruins but then in cutscenes get choked up at just the thought of killing a person. Sometimes games actually present a reason for the not murdering that makes sense for the character. In dishonored you play a man accused of a crime he didn't commit and the player has to decide on what justice means for them, and then act upon those beliefs: either by killing everyone who wronged you or by coming up with punishments that hurt them to the core, i.e. you ex-communicate a priest and make some nobles get sold into slavery.

Other than that, it is a great game. Very fun. I think that it might be a little up itself with the whole niece death thing. I would rather have just played a hacker going out to use a company's all seeing OS against them to show why that kind of big brother thing is a morally iffy and ethically fucked endeavor. Instead they chose to create instead of a batman clone in a GTA suit. But hell I played it didn't I?

Lies, Bias and Misinformation

Today I was going to discuss what has been going on in Israel lately and examine the various responsible parties. But quite honestly I have nothing positive to say about any of the organizations determining the fate of that region and it makes me both blindingly angry and very very sad. So fuck that, lets talk about the dilution of information.

To be clear I'm not talking about the dissemination of information to the populace, that is at its core a beautiful, hopeful thing to me. No, my concern lies with the tradition, especially in news media, of giving the loudest voices equal time and respect to the well informed. Not only that but the habit of assuming that someone who claims expertise in a field has any fucking clue about anything at all. Now, the second bit I understand; most people are pretty trusting and there isn't really anything wrong with that. It does however deserve to be pointed out that avarice and time are both very disruptive to accuracy.

There is a phenomenon called the "half-life of knowledge" and it refers to the fact that over a period of time advances in science and understanding will render around half of accepted information inaccurate. This is most pronounced in fields such as medicine which by their nature continually engage new information, (both through rigorous study and incidental discovery in the form of individual patient care). There is even a habit in medicine to inform students that by the time they graduate everything they learned will be obsolete. Its a great example of people being completely fucking wrong of no fault of their own. Add to that the unfortunate tenacity of ideas beyond their accuracy and the propensity of people to over-hype new and unsubstantiated information and its pretty unsurprising that most people have no clue what they're talking about.

Another side of this nasty habit is corporate interference. What I mean is that corporate, academic, and sometimes governmental, forces are prone to extorting desirable results out of scientists and stonewalling undesirable results. This is largely done by the manipulation of grants and intimidation, and its a way, way worse problem than you'd want to believe. And then, of course, there's the problem of providing equal representation to overwhelming expert consensus and fringe fuck-stickery.

Unfortunately, the problem isn't just with the accidentally ill-informed and the pressured experts. Not only are many of the people involved in relaying information to the populace, (news media) either sad and kind of stupid or blatant fucking idiots with an axe to grind, (and believe me its not easy to get around the bias of either side to prove this) but these sputtering bobble-heads tend to look to opinionated plebs for just about everything, often in the form of polls. Now, naturally the worst issue on this front is that everyone is biased, it can't be helped. You can typically try to mitigate this by engaging people with varying opinions and positions, but that typically doesn't happen because people tend to disregard opposing views and seek supporting ones.

These issues taken together coagulate into a sort of perfect storm of misinformation and poorly obfuscated motives. Unfortunately, I'm a jaded, cynical cunt; so I don't have any solutions, even if I did you wouldn't want them. I have to say after... Jesus, three hours of trying to hunt down info on various news personas and organizations that isn't frantic masturbation by any number of social factions I might as well have just done the fucking Israel thing.

Good luck out there.

~Eshi

Attack of The Killer Vegan!!!

I talked about health in my last post and I wanted to continue on that path by addressing something that is a popular dietary trend. Vegetarians and Vegans. I have less a problem with the former, but the latter are almost always smug, moralizing cunts. I will only be looking at a couple aspects of this for now. This issue is much larger than I can fit into one post. I will be as charitable as I can here, because ultimately I agree with one or two of the major claims of vegans, I just think that the holier than thou attitude is not only shitty but also suffers from some glaring internal inconsistencies.

I am posting this link here for you, reader, as I will be calling back to it a lot. Please take a minute to read over it if you want, it has good/balanced information on vegetarianism.

The first point I will agree with vegans on is health. Yes, Vegan Diets are healthy. You get a lot of reduced risk in health problems like diabetes, cancer, and heart disease. The problem with this is that no studies have been conclusive in terms of pointing directly to vegetarianism and not other lifestyle choices that are more common in vegetarians and vegans which may sway the results. Reduction in the consumption of bad cholesterol and fat surely helps, but exercise helps mitigate the effects of these as well, so pointing at one thing and shouting "this is the solution" is a bit premature.

There are some deficits in nutrition that vegans and vegetarians get in terms of protein, vitamin b12, omega-3 fatty acids, and iron. Protein can be gained from a variety of plant based products, so as long as you aim for variety in your diet you'll be fine. B12 and omega-3s  are something only found in animal based products, so you will need to take supplements to make sure that your intake of them is sufficient. Zinc and iron are found in plants but due to phytic acid they have a harder time being absorbed. Iron is more readily absorbed via meat products, although zinc levels in vegans appear to be sufficient.

Humans have evolved for thousands of years as omnivores, cutting out any section of our diet will have some effect on nutrient intake. With health and exercise though, I believe that eating some meat along with more fruits and vegetables would probably be just as healthy. I am not advocating a meat only diet, or even a diet heavy in meat, health problems like colon cancer are associated with diets heavy in meat products. I am just saying that cutting it out completely might produce problems with your health as well. The world is not black and white, you need to find a healthy balance.

Cruelty is also a major point that vegetarians and vegans make. Meat is obtained by killing large amounts of animals who may or may not be raised on farms that treat the animals badly. I am sure that most of you will have seen PETA's videos of people beating pigs and keeping chickens in tiny, suffocating cages. This is, of course, fucking horrible. Nothing deserves to be treated like that. By eating meat you tacitly consent to this treatment. The only possible solution is to stop eating meat, right? Well, you could also buy your meat from local farms and farmer's markets where you can be a little more sure that the farmer treats their animals well. Of course you cannot be completely sure of that so it is still a danger. What if you raised the animals yourself, and distributed it yourself. This is also a solution, though a little more costly at first and time intensive, but it still works. Of course you can fix this all with heavier regulations which actually get enforced. I am sure that you, the reader, will also have some ideas. My point is that there are other options to animal cruelty. Hell, teach empathy to the farmers, that could help.

If you, as a vegan or vegetarian say, "well killing the animal at all is murder". Or "taking the animal's other products is also a form of slavery that takes advantage of an animal to make your life easier, you cruel sadistic fucker, you".  My response is that you are closed minded and are only trying to justify your smug superiority. If an animal dies what happens to it? The meat gets eaten, whether by us or by other animals. This is the way of nature. All things die and are consumed. Life consumes life. Energy doesn't come from nowhere, it needs matter (and vice-versa). But sure, I will concede that taking the life of an animal prior to it dying of natural causes could constitute murder.

But what of plants? We have selectively bred them to be better for us as humans since the beginning of agriculture. Bananas in the wild are short brown-green sacks filled with more seeds than flesh. We bred the ones that displayed attributes that made them better for us, the consumer. We do this with everything we grow, even organic fruits and vegetables. Genetically modified foods, by the way, just use a more direct process, though I do think it needs more research and oversight before we mass distribute them. Do we wait till plants are dead to eat them? No, we cut them down in their prime and eat them while they die slowly (most plants are only edible while they still have living parts). Very humane. Where do you get your vegetables? Do you grow them yourself? Or are they grown on a farm that uses migrant workers (a position shockingly close to slavery)? How do you know for sure?

"But plants are different from animals, animals can feel!" Well, plants can feel too. Just because something doesn't have a face, and is therefore harder to empathize with, doesn't mean that they don't feel. Maybe they just communicate on a different level. That link shows that trees communicate with other trees when they are attacked by insects. This communication lets other trees know that they need to protect themselves. We are just starting to recognize the cognitive nature of plants. Making the argument that we should try to not cause harm is good. I agree. If you want to eat meat, make sure that it isn't tortured first. But don't get all high and mighty with others and say, "well I am not causing pain via my diet, and as such, it is superior to yours." Maybe think on the fact that we might just not understand what we are doing yet.

If eating meat is wrong, why don't we try to stop animals from doing it? Would you stop a lion from eating a gazelle and try to introduce it to the caesar salad? No? Is it because they are animals and it is within their nature to do so? Well, surprise motherfucker, humans are animals. We exist within nature, and thus, within the systems that evolved on our planet. You might say that because we have a better understanding of the impact of our actions that we should try to act differently and I agree. But until we have the technology that allows us to live with no negative impact on our environs anything we do kills something. It sucks, but is an unfortunate byproduct of existence that should ultimately fuel more efforts to learn and do more science.

The best solution I can see at this point in technology is that we need to try to not be dicks. Understand that some farms treat animals like a commodity and don't support the ones that do. Do some research! Buy from local farmers that you know. Grow plants/raise animals yourself. Everyone: Act the way you think is the best, and don't foist your inevitably stupid, shitty, opinions on others as the only possible way to live.

A Sour Truth Is Better Than a Sweet Lie, Especially If it Gives You Diabetes.

So, I'm here to talk to you about a lie that has found it's way into the zeitgeist. You will see this lie in advertisements and on news shows: Getting fit is easy. The fact is that it isn't. We want to believe that there's a magic pill or diet that will act as a cure all because we want easy and instant results, but there isn't one, and telling people that something like that is out there because you want to sell product is damaging to those people. To lose weight you need to improve your diet and get some exercise. Even then you may or may not get thin with these changes since genetics has way more to do with it then anyone will tell you. Exercise should be about getting healthier, and not about getting thin. In fact, being thin or fat doesn't guarantee a level of health.

There is a popular trend among health experts: telling people that they "just need" 30 minutes to an hour of exercise a day. Telling people that "All you need is just an hour of exercise a day" makes it sound easy; they will surely try to do that, which is good. However, if they are people who haven't exercised in a long time then even 30 minutes of work out will make them feel like they are dying. I know this from experience. It isn't easy at first. It hurts, you get sweaty and tired, and your self esteem gets damaged from not being able to work out like people who have done it for longer then you have. You haven't built up a tolerance to the pain that comes from working out. Experts will try to trick people into working out and while I respect the want to get people healthy, it is a genuine problem in the world, not being realistic about it makes people give up fairly early in the process. After the weeks and months it takes to turn it into a habit it gets better, but until that point you will want to murder healthy people in their skinny fucking faces. Stick with it, and eventually you might get a little better, at the very least a little bit healthier. It is the classic solution, a little work now for less work later.

As for healthy diets, it is essentially class warfare at this point. People like Jamie Oliver can make claims about how eating healthy is something everyone can do always ignore one factor: income. The lower your income the less healthy foods you can afford. That links to a study that shows that it is more expensive per person to feed people healthily than to just eat junk food. Both of my parents worked two jobs when I was growing up. They didn't have as much money to spend on food or time to prepare it in. Since they worked at jobs in the food service industry they brought home meals from work because it was cheaper and faster than going to a store and buying ingredients to cook a healthy meal. Time and money are at a premium in low income families, so you will tend to eat out more since $1 for a hamburger is faster and cheaper than doing it yourself. To make things worse food made at restaurants (of both the fast food and sit down varieties) is much less healthy for you. So, without larger social changes, encouraging people in low income areas to eat healthier isn't so much a solution as victim blaming

One last point I would like to make is that there is a stigma against overweight people in the west. If you are fat you are considered stupid, lazy, disgusting, and all around less than human. People who are overweight tend to be hired less, make less money, and ultimately have less self esteem. They are also at a disincentive to get better. If you are working out and overweight the judgement and perceived judgement from people around you is liable to make you give up, even if it goes unspoken. This means that overweight people will be less likely to go and work out. There is a way to make this better for overweight people: find support. No, not like a girdle, I mean like emotional support. Not necessarily like Weight Watchers, but a person or group that you can get emotional support from (and return as well, don't be a dick) to help you get over the majority of that stigma. You will always feel bad about yourself if you have low self esteem, but the support of another person will make the task more bearable.

Basically with support, realistic expectations, and hard work you can make yourself a little healthier. Actually I think those three things are basically necessary for anything you want to accomplish. Just remember: "Sucking at something is the first step at being sort of good at something"